Donna Marie Merritt is a poet and children's author. Her sixth book of poetry, No Winter Maintenance: Pass at Your Own Risk, was released in spring 2017. Previous books include We Walk Together and Her House and Other Poems.

Merritt's stories and poems have appeared in school reading programs, language arts books, Highlights High Five, Highlights Hello, and American Library Association’s Book Links. Her poems have also been selected for a number of anthologies for both children and adults: Yale Medical Group's Caduceus, the Garbanzo Literary Journal, NCTE's Dear One: A Tribute to Lee Bennett Hopkins, Connecticut Poetry Society's Olives, Now and Then: Poems in Honor of Donald Hall, National Geographic's Book of Nature Poetry, and Little, Brown's One Minute Till Bedtime.

She has worked as a columnist for Teaching K–8 magazine, editor, teacher, and school librarian.